September 28-October 2, 2011 • Darlington, Maryland
Changes for Fires of Venus 2010:There are so many changes this year that they get a whole page. Before we go into them, we want to assure you that the core concept and values of the event remain the same. Just adapted and, we believe, improved by our experience over the past two years. We are so excited about this year's event that we can't wait to share it with you! Our first innovation is to invite you to be a part of the Temple Builders team, arriving on Wednesday at noon and helping to erect our Fire Temple and decorate it. You'll get the experience of being part of a community of people who put that much extra energy into the event, an opportunity to enjoy our low-key staff and temple-builders' fire on Wed night, and a badge that shows all other attendees you helped make the event happen. Also, in 2010, we're introducing a new concept. You'll be invited, when you register, to choose a Core Group to be a member of, for example, Air, who would work on both the practical matter of smudging people into the Temple and also on issues of communication. More information on the Core Groups can be found here. There will be no day passes for this event this year. We believe that to really experience Fires of Venus, you have to be there for more than one day. As with last year's event, we are capping the registration at 175 attendees. There will be no at-gate registration. We have to plan the event for the number of people who will be there, so we need a number ahead of time. After receiving so much positive feedback on the indoor ritual on Saturday night last year, we have decided to set up the indoor ritual space for the entire event. We will certainly use it for Saturday night's ritual Puja, and we may use it at other times if the weather is such that we need to be indoors. In part because of this change, we will not be hosting a large dungeon at Fires this year, in favor of expanding our Temple of Surrender space. There will be a small, untended dungeon space in the Bat Barn which is a play-at-your-own-risk space. We will not be providing DMs for this space, in favor of committing those resources to the fire circle. In addition, we will not be hosting Babylon's Temple this year, preferring to commit to a Clear Space where people can go when the fire and the event becomes too much for them. And the Sexperiments space will not be formally hosted this year, either. We are planning to bring a stripper pole to the Temple of Dreams for the event, perhaps even bringing it out to the Delta of Venus! It is unclear to us how the camp will be handling food this year. We don't think they will be bringing back our chef, unfortunately, so we'll be posting their planned menu as soon as we get it from them and hoping for the best. We will press them for an alacarte menu to be served between meals as well. The Ning group for Beltane was so popular that we'll be hosting one for this event as well (yes, and paying for it, too). This is an opportunity to network with other attendees and staff and to deepen the work we're doing at the event even further. We hope you'll take advantage of it. While we know that some of these changes mean that some people will consider not attending, we hope that you will give it a try. These changes are meant to draw everyone's attention to the main purpose of the event: The Temple of Venus. We hope you will find that they focus and improve the feel and experience of the event. The entire ritual team is excited about this year's event and can't wait to share with you our work once again. We look forward to seeing you there! |